There is no doubt that the deterioration of the Egyptian economy was one of the major features of 2012. The main economic and fiscal indicators, including but not limited to foreign and domestic private investment, consumption, unemployment rates, external and internal trade, budget deficit, public debt and foreign exchange rate, performed worse compared to the previous year. The political crisis Egypt faced after November 2012's presidential constitutional declaration accelerated the economy's deterioration and attracted the attention of policymakers, politicians and citizens to the economic and financial situation. It is not also exaggerating to say that highlighting the economic and fiscal threats over the last two weeks was behind the calming down of the political atmosphere in Egypt after the referendum on the constitution took place in December 2012. In a late response, the government of Egypt has launched what is called the “National Initiative for Economic Take-off”. The initiative's main players are the prime minister and the ministers of planning and international cooperation, finance, investment and trade and industry. The president supported this initiative through meeting with a handful of businessmen and economic experts. According to government announcements, this initiative is based on societal dialogue with all relevant stakeholders. The activities conducted under this initiative, so far, reflect the following issues. First, one of the government's priorities in this initiative is to prepare society for implementing a package of austerity measures, including tax and public fees increase and public expenditure decrease. Political considerations were used over the last year to postpone the implementation of these measures. The current context and crisis atmosphere provide a suitable environment to start the process. As a result, the dialogue basis was the previously decided upon measures, rather than the future economic and fiscal policies in Egypt. In other words, the initiative discourse was closed in a way that limits thinking “out of the box”. This may be explained by the government's desire to implement its delayed short-term policies. Second, the societal dialogue is so far an elite dialogue. The initiative's activities are mainly dominated by economic and financial experts, academicians, research centres and think tanks. The representation of political parties, grassroots political movements, parliament committees and professional syndicates is still very weak. An effective national dialogue should include all relevant stakeholders. One can understand the high level of technicality embedded in designing economic and fiscal policies. However, we cannot ignore that the whole society will bear the brunt of such policies. Reaching a real consensus on the economic and fiscal direction of the country necessitates broadening the scope and coverage of this societal dialogue. The term “dialogue” has become an important part of “science and society” discourse during the past decade. As such, statements like the following have become integral to reports and activities at the interface of science and society: “The acquisition of a basic grounding in science and technology by the European public and a regular flow of information to the public from experts are not in themselves enough to enable people to form an opinion. A true dialogue must therefore be instituted between science and society” (European Commission, 2002). Third, the announced results of the societal dialogue are very generic and broad. The dialogue mainly focused on the goals and objectives of the economic and fiscal reform programme, rather than answering the question of how to achieve its goals and objectives. Raising issues like supporting economic policies, decreasing the budget deficit, achieving social justice, fighting corruption, and reforming public administration is very important. However, the societal dialogue needs to give priority to discussing and proposing specific policies and measures. Reaching a detailed action plan should be the real result of this dialogue. The dialogue should generate a roadmap for Egypt's economy, including all challenges and opportunities with a timeframe and exact milestones. Of course, this requires more time and effort and a more inclusive initiative. Fourth, given the generic nature of the recommendations resulting from the present societal dialogue, it will be very difficult to follow up on and evaluate government commitment and consideration towards these recommendations. In other words, one cannot rely on this initiative to be a real social accountability mechanism that affects government decision-making regarding economic and fiscal policies. The output does not allow civil society organisations and ordinary citizens to assess the performance of the government and its entities. Fifth, there is no information released about whether the initiative was designed to be a permanent mechanism or a one-shot exercise. It is also not clear whether this initiative and this dialogue will be part of the president's initiative of establishing an economic council affiliated to the presidency. In addition, there is no talk about activating Article 207 of Egypt's new constitution that describes establishing an economic and social council that should have at least 150 members representing different societal segments. This situation raises strong concern regarding the sustainability of the present dialogue. The abovementioned issues do not mean that launching the initiative and its societal dialogue activities was not a step in the right direction. As stated, the decision of starting this initiative was late. Since the January 2011 Revolution, many public figures, political parties and civil society organisations have emphasised the necessity of launching such an initiative. This initiative should be strengthened to be more effective. The initiative's scope should be expanded and extended to include more societal stakeholders. The Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation is in process to produce the strategic frame of the coming social and economic development plan. The ministry uses a wider participatory approach in developing this frame. This should be extended to other aspects of the Egyptian economy and finance. We need a comprehensive strategy that provides specific solutions and paths. Finally, the Egyptian economic elite, including scholars and experts, should perceive that societal dialogue is about the public and experts who learn both from and with one another on where scientific research can, will, and should go. Relying on textbook solutions and state of the art theories and approaches may not be the right choice, especially during transitional and unstable periods. We need to translate the public's demands — and even dreams — into logical but responsive economic and financial decisions. We have to develop a fresh demand-driven research and policy agenda for new Egypt, considering the new political, economic and social factors that were resulted from January 2011 Revolution. The writer is associate professor at the School of Economics and Political Science, Cairo University.
